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Ballotry: The Team Speed Kills BlogPoll Ballot

Ties broken: Oklahoma State-Stanford, because Oklahoma State had the highest ranking on one of the ballots; Michigan-Kansas State, ditto; Arkansas-Georgia Tech, because of the SEC homerism; South Carolina-Nebraska, for the same reason despite the fact that it makes me nervous that we'll draw the CK award.

As for the missing deltas -- I decided not to turn in a ballot last week because Year2 was unable to vote and indicated he had some disagreements with my draft. So, rather than go for Mr. Manic-Depressive two weeks in a row for no other reason than one of the voters not being involved.

Year2's half of the ballot is here, while mine is below.

Let's lead off with the resume chart, since it has the ballot in presentable form.

Bpbresumenow_medium

1 LSU
2 Alabama
3 Clemson
4 Oklahoma
5 Wisconsin

I keep telling myself that this is the start of a heart-breaking collapse for Clemson. It's really the only way I can sleep at night. Would I like to end Clemson's undefeated season at the end of the year? No. Because I want Clemson to lose each and every game they play by at least five touchdowns. So ranking them third, especially on the same week when my team visibly wet itself on national television, sickens me on a level that's hard to explain. Perhaps your intrastate rivals are respectful people who keep these kinds of things in perspective. With Clemson, we have no such luxury. Oh, and it's nice to see Wisconsin back, now that they drummed the living daylights out of somebody who actually plays football. But, mostly, the first part of this ballot is a desperate plea for someone to beat Clemson

6 Boise State
7 Michigan
8 Stanford
9 Kansas State
10 Illinois

This is Boise and a portion of a ballot apparently stolen from 2003. Stanford has a lot of blowouts over mediocre BCS competition. Kansas State finally has a nice win to add to its undefeated collection.

11 Oklahoma State
12 Georgia Tech
13 Texas
14 Auburn
15 South Carolina

I can't help thinking that I have Georgia Tech ranked way too high, but it's really much more dismal below them that you might realize. Texas is way too high, but that will end once they get into the meat of their schedule. Or, as the case may be, the tofu of their schedule. Auburn has to be ahead of South Carolina, and the cumulative effect of South Carolina's win just barley allows them to stay in the Top 15. They will have to start playing better to stay here.

16 Arizona State
17 Texas Tech
18 Nebraska
19 Washington
20 Arkansas

Texas Tech feels like a bubble that's about to burst. Nebraska would be higher if they hadn't gotten incinerated against Wisconsin, and Washington's putting a nice season together so far. Arkansas is beginning to move up the ballot, given that they're actually playing teams now and winning.

21 Southern Cal
22 Florida
23 Houston
24 Oregon
25 Baylor

Oregon is a nettlesome team for me right now, because I really believe that they're an elite team. The problem is that they haven't played and defeated anyone that allows them to prove it. Southern Cal is a team I expect to drop out soon enough, and Florida could join them given what I think most of us believe will happen next week. Houston is a pretty solid mid-major right now. I made sure to include Baylor because I wanted to make sure Ken Starr wouldn't sue me.